In "The Diseases of Conscience, Part 3," Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds on the causes and cure for a calloused conscience, building on the necessity of maintaining a good conscience for perseverance in faith. He identifies the singular cause as a failure to react biblically to a tender conscience, detailing contributing factors like weariness, unbelief, pride, and carnal fear. The sermon then outlines a three-fold cure: honest recognition of one's condition, wholehearted dealings with God for change, and specific steps to remove the causes, emphasizing the need to soak callouses in the blood of Christ and make things right with God and man.
Primary Texts
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Acts 24:16This verse, though briefly quoted, serves as a foundational principle for the entire series on conscience, highlighting Paul's commitment to maintaining a clear conscience before God and man.
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Revelation 2:4-5The Lord's message to the Ephesian church provides the three-fold framework for the cure of a calloused conscience: remember, repent, and do the first works.
Introduction: The Perseverance of the Saints and a Good Conscience0:01
Characteristics of a Calloused Conscience (Review)5:02
The Singular Cause of a Calloused Conscience6:14
Analogy: Running Shoes and Blisters6:50
Causes: Paralyzing Weariness in the Battle11:00
Causes: Unbelieving Reluctance to Come to Christ15:44
Causes: Proud Refusal to Maintain a Penitent Posture21:34
Causes: Carnal Fear of Consequences (Horizontal Dimension)30:21
Causes: Unmortified Pride Hindering Confession36:23
The Cure: Honest Recognition of Your Condition40:43
The Cure: Wholehearted Dealings with God48:05
The Cure: Specific Steps to Remove Causes51:01
Conclusion: Daily Audit and Preparation for Death56:51
Key Quotes
“A failure to react biblically to the functions of conscience while it is yet tender and sensitive.”
“The fundamental cause of a calloused conscience is failure to react biblically to the functions of conscience while it is yet tender and sensitive.”
“nothing is so withering to human pride than to walk months years or even decades in the way of righteousness by the grace of God and yet still to maintain the position the posture and the attitude of a publican”
“lies have a peculiar callous making power”
“The hardest words for you to say are these I was wrong full stop not I was wrong but and everything that follows the but cancels the I was wrong”
“there is no hope for recovery from a calloused conscience if you will not remember if you will not come to an honest and accurate recognition of your present condition”
“The first thing you need to do is go and ask God to soak those callouses in the blood of Jesus nothing will begin to soften callouses upon the conscience apart from the blood of Jesus”
“do your work daily and then you'll have no abnormal work to do in temptation sickness and death”
Applications
Parents & families
Children, deal immediately with lies you tell your parents, as lies have a peculiar power to quickly callous your conscience.
Children, sit down with mom and dad to clear up lies told and money taken, as time alone will not resolve these issues.
All listeners
Examine the road you are walking to ensure it is the narrow gate of true conversion and biblical godliness, as vague hopes for heaven are insufficient.
Never violate the present dictates of conscience, immediately silence every accusation of conscience, continually educate the standard by which conscience judges, and learn to recognize and treat its common diseases.
When conscience raises a 'blister' of pain due to sin, deal with it biblically by running to Christ's blood for cleansing and confessing sin to God.
Make issues right at a horizontal level (asking forgiveness from others) when conscience prompts, to prevent the formation of a calloused conscience.
Do not give in to unbelieving reluctance to keep coming to Christ again and again for cleansing and forgiveness, no matter how many times you have sinned in a day.
Overcome the spirit of unbelief that questions God's willingness to forgive repeatedly, remembering that God's forgiveness is boundless.
Maintain the posture of a perpetual penitent, acknowledging your sinfulness even in your holiest moments, and resisting a proud refusal to do so.
Deal biblically with conscience's promptings regarding pride, humbling yourself rather than looking to external virtues or comparing yourself to others.
Overcome carnal fear of the consequences of making things right with others by confessing sins that are offenses to both God and man.
Do not allow fear of governmental consequences (e.g., for tax fraud) to prevent you from making things right, as this will callous your conscience.
Husbands, do not let carnal fear of consequences (e.g., divorce) prevent you from making right marital infidelity with your wife, as this will callous your conscience.
Trample over native pride and self-justification to say the hard words, 'I was wrong,' and ask for forgiveness from others.
Begin the cure for a calloused conscience with an honest and accurate recognition of your condition, remembering when your conscience was tender.
Engage in wholehearted dealings with God to have your calloused condition changed, seeking Him with all your heart, with fasting, mourning, and weeping.
Take specific steps to remove the causes of your calloused conscience, rather than merely desiring change.
Soak your calloused conscience in the blood of Jesus, viewing your sins afresh in the light of His agony and wrath.
Make a list of specific issues that need to be set right with God and with fellow men, and systematically deal with each one (e.g., writing letters, making restitution).
Do not claim delusive notions of perfection, but strive to have a conscience void of offense toward God and man.
Write to the IRS if you have cheated on taxes, getting honest with God and specific in your dealings, even if it's a painful process.
Be jealous to get a good conscience at any cost, even if it means a long and humbling process of making things right.
Every day, keep an audit with your conscience, cast up your accounts, draw the blood of Christ over them, and beg forgiveness and the Spirit's leading.
Live each day with a clear conscience so that in times of sickness, temptation, and death, you have no abnormal work to do, but are prepared to meet the Lord.
Unconverted individuals, recognize your sinnerhood and flee to Christ for pardon, finding peace of conscience through His precious blood, and do not rest until you do.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 47 paragraphs, roughly 61 minutes.
Machine transcription
Introduction: The Perseverance of the Saints and a Good Conscience
This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, November 28th, 1982, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Let us again seek the face of God for his blessing upon the ministry of the word of God to our hearts. Our Father, we bow again, not because we were not in earnest when we were led in prayer, pleading earlier for your blessing upon the ministry of the word, but, O God, we come again because we feel so deeply our utter inability rightly to understand and to receive your holy word, unless there is in each of our hearts a present and powerful operation of the Holy Spirit, granting us illumination and then the motivation and the very power to will and to do the things that we have been told to do. that are pleasing in your sight. Work in us, then, all of those graces without which our hearing will be in vain. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
If you have spent any time at all talking to people about the great issues of their soul's relationship to God, then you're very much aware that this world is full of multitudes of men and women who have some vague notion and ill-grounded hope that, when they die, they'll end up in heaven. They are ignorant of the gospel, both as to its content and its power, and yet they hope that somehow everything will be all right with them at the end of the road. But the word of God is very clear, that unless men enter the name of God, they will not be saved. But the word of God is very clear, that unless men enter the name of God, that unless men enter the name of God, that unless men enter the name of God, and walk the narrow gate of true conversion and walk the narrow road of true, vital, biblical godliness, they have no scriptural grounds to believe they will enter life at last. And in our Lord's Day morning studies of the word of God, we're examining what the scriptures have to say about that road which we must walk all of our days, we're examining what the scriptures have to say about that road which we must walk all of our days,
if we are to enter heaven at last. And the name that is given for the teaching of the word of God about that subject is the perseverance of the saints, the continuance of the people of God, in the path of faith, of holiness, and obedience. And what we are doing in our studies at this point is examining some of the means that God is ordained by which his people, are kept in that narrow road that leads unto life. And the means we are presently studying is that which I've described as the getting and the keeping of a good conscience before God.
Having demonstrated from the scriptures the vital relationship between our perseverance and the keeping of a good conscience, we then went on to see from the scriptures how one gets a good conscience, and we are now concerned with discovering together how it is possible to keep a good conscience. And I have set before you these principles of Holy Scripture, which in answer to the question, how does one keep a good conscience, assert, we must never violate the present dictates of conscience. Secondly, we must immediately silence every accusation of conscience, thirdly, we must continually educate the standard by which conscience judges, and fourthly, we must learn to recognize and treat the common diseases and disorders of conscience. One of those disorders is the disorder of an excessively scrupulous conscience. The second disorder that we must learn to recognize and treat is that of a calloused conscience. And all we had time to do last week was to look together at the characteristics or the symptoms of a calloused conscience.
Characteristics of a Calloused Conscience (Review)
And I suggested that those symptoms are at least three. The absence of present pain when sin is knowingly committed, the absence of immediate response when sin is exposed to the Word, and the absence of shame before God and man when sin has been committed. Now this morning we want to move on to consider the cause of a calloused conscience and then the cure for such a conscience. Having examined the characteristics of a calloused conscience, our concern this morning is, first of all, to seek to discover from the Word of God the cause of a calloused conscience. Now you will notice that I used the singular. I did not say the causes, plural, but the cause of a calloused conscience. For in reality there is but one fundamental cause for a calloused conscience.
The Singular Cause of a Calloused Conscience
And that cause simply stated is this. A failure to react biblically to the functions of conscience while it is yet tender and sensitive. The fundamental cause for a calloused conscience is a failure to react biblically to the functions of conscience while it is yet tender and sensitive. Let me use an illustration.
Analogy: Running Shoes and Blisters
Before we turn to some specific portions in the Word of God. Some of us run or jog. It all depends from whose perspective you describe it in order to keep our weight controlled and for other health reasons. And occasionally our running shoes wear out.
And the day comes when we have to get a new pair of running shoes. And often when we do, the different configuration in the running shoe will result in the formation of a blister the first two or three times we use the shoes. Now what happens is this. When we put the shoes on and go out and run, pressure is brought to bear upon a part of the skin in the foot that is very sensitive.
And up until the introduction to the new running shoes, no such pressure was brought in that precise way over that prolonged period upon that sensitive skin. And in reaction to that pressure, often a blister, a very sore blister will develop. And especially if the blister tears and the raw flesh is left rubbing against the fabric on the inside of the running shoe, it's a very painful experience. But some of us have known what it is to put a band-aid over that blister and keep on with our running.
And then after a week or two, when the sore, raw spot is healed, we continue to wear those running shoes until after several months such a callus develops that we can run as far as our legs and lungs will take us and never feel the slightest bit of irritation. The spot that was immediately and initially sensitive and tender by the constant rubbing has developed a callus. Now that is precisely what happens in the development of a callus in the conscience. Where once a conscience was biblically tender and sensitive and laid bare as it were and felt the painful blister of that reaction when we sinned against God or when our sin was pointed out by the Word of God then we experience some of that legitimate shame before God and man if we do not at that precise point, deal with the functions of conscience biblically that is run to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness confess our sin to God and plead the cleansing of the blood of Christ. If we do not at that point
make issues right that need to be made right at a horizontal level whether it's asking forgiveness of wife and children or friend or work associate for an angry word for some unkind or unchristian deed if we do not at the point that the blister is raised upon conscience if we do not at that point react biblically we have started on the road to the formation of a calloused conscience. The fundamental cause of a calloused conscience is failure to react biblically to the functions of conscience while it is yet tender and sensitive. Now the reasons for this are many and I want to touch on just a few that are illustrated in the Word of God and I believe will be confirmed in our heart of hearts if we are honest in the presence of God. For some this failure to react biblically may be the result of a paralyzing weariness in the battle to keep a good conscience. For some this failure to react biblically
Causes: Paralyzing Weariness in the Battle
to the functions of a tender conscience is the result of a paralyzing weariness in the battle to keep a clear conscience. You remember the text to which we've made reference again and again in this series Acts 24 and verse 16. The Apostle Paul says and herein do I exercise myself this was a matter of conscious deliberate activity herein do I exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense toward God and man always. It was a conscious constant spiritual exercise it was part of internal personal spiritual warfare to keep a good conscience to God and to man. And the reason some develop a calloused conscience the reason they fail to react biblically to the functions of conscience while it is tender and sensitive is that they come into a condition that I don't know how to describe it in any other way other than that of a paralyzing weariness in the incessant battle to keep a good conscience.
Hebrews chapter 12 gives us a picture of that weariness. The opening verses are very familiar to us. The Christian is called to run a race. He is called to run that race laying aside every impediment the sins and the weights.
And to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of his faith. But then verse 3 Consider him that endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself that you wax not weary fainting in your souls you have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. You see the picture? Here in the realism of the New Testament concept of the Christian life not only as a race but as a constant warfare the writer to the Hebrews chides these people because they have grown fainting and weary in their souls in this conflict with sin. When conscience is healthy conscience is continually reminding us of the demands of God's law the implications of being the bond slaves of Christ conscience while under the light of the law of the gospel is continually pointing us in the path of duty pointing us away from the path of sin chiding us when we have committed sin and in this striving with sin there comes a weariness and that weariness can lead to a paralysis and we come to the point where we say
the price to keep a good conscience is just plain too high. It's like a poor man who's purchased not so poor if he could do that a pitiable man who has purchased a new car and he lives in an area where there's been a volcanic eruption and for days the volcanic ash is continually settling down on everything that is exposed. And he no sooner goes out and wipes off his new car and admires his shiny bucket of bolts he comes back an hour later and the volcanic ash is all over and he goes out and he wipes it off and comes in and he no sooner comes in and reads the newspaper peeks out the window to enjoy the sight of his shiny new bucket of bolts and lo and behold it's covered with volcanic ash again and he just gets weary when will that ash stop falling so I can enjoy my shiny car without this constant effort? And so it is in the soul of a believer who is determined that he shall have no blot upon his conscience that he shall have a conscience without offense Godward and manward so that the slightest thought of pride and of lust and of envy and of bitterness are brought to the fountain and for sin and uncleanness
Causes: Unbelieving Reluctance to Come to Christ
with as much spiritual vigor as if the man had committed adultery or murder or had been toying with apostasy so to struggle with sin under the light and under the pressure of a healthy sensitive conscience becomes wearisome and often people begin to develop a callous upon the conscience when they are paralyzed through the weariness in this battle to keep a good conscience but then there are others who stop dealing with their consciences in a biblical manner because of an unbelieving reluctance to keep coming again and again to Christ for cleansing and forgiveness they fail to react biblically to the functions of conscience while it's tender and sensitive because of an unbelieving reluctance to keep coming again and again to Christ for cleansing and forgiveness in the soul of a healthy believer there are those areas of which he is very much aware where there is peculiar vulnerability to sin in some it may be evident in others it is known only to the believer and his God
and in those areas there is continuous struggle and that believer may have to come a hundred times a day and say oh Lord Jesus wash me in your precious blood forgive me for entertaining that thought forgive me Lord for indulging that angry passion forgive me Lord for indulging in my spirit unknown to any but to your eye which is as a flame of fire forgive me for the indulgence of that envious desire forgive me Lord for that spirit of discontent and anyone who knows anything of a wholesomely tender and sensitive conscience knows that it's only a conscience continually soaked in the blood of Christ that can be kept from callouses but what happens a spirit of unbelief begins to creep over the spirit of that man that woman that boy or girl and he begins to question can I come again with this sin I've already come several dozen times today and pled the promise if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness can I come another time
and another and another and what happens there is an unbelieving reluctance to keep coming again and again and as often as we must come for there are no qualifications put across those promises it does not say if we confess our sins but ten times or twenty or thirty or a hundred it says if we confess our sins at every point of confession God is found a faithful God and righteous to forgive and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Psalm 130 and verse 4 if thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities O Lord who could stand but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared no limits put upon it whatever sin God may mark is a sin for which there is forgiveness yet some have come into the state of a calloused conscience not so much from the paralyzing weariness in the battle to keep a good conscience so that they've just given up on certain areas of their lives
but there is this unbelieving reluctance to keep coming again and again and again to the Lord Jesus Christ for cleansing us and for forgiveness O my dear Christian friend who has fallen prey to this terrible spirit of unbelief and that's what it is would God enjoin you to do more than he does when the question was asked how many times shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him till seven times and our Lord says no till seventy times seven in other words we don't keep a ledger when we forgive our brethren God says forgiveness is to go out as often as he sins against us and asks our forgiveness would God ask you to do more than he does the answer is very obvious to anyone who has any acquaintance with the God of the Bible but there are others of you who perhaps have come to a calloused conscience by this failure to react biblically to the functions of conscience while it was yet tender and sensitive not so much because of a paralyzing weariness or an unbelieving reluctance
Causes: Proud Refusal to Maintain a Penitent Posture
but because of a proud refusal to maintain the posture of a penitent a proud refusal to maintain the posture of a penitent you see the Pharisee to some degree is in every one of us we'd rather run the risk of a calloused conscience and be able to say I thank you God I'm not as others than to maintain the posture of a publican God be merciful to me the sinner and of course I'm referring to the record of the Pharisee and the publican as found in the Gospel of Luke you see nothing is so withering to human pride than to walk months years or even decades in the way of righteousness by the grace of God and yet still to maintain the position the posture and the attitude of a publican to know that I am righteous in Christ to know by the testimony of conscience that I have walked in the way of righteousness by the grace of God for X number of years or even decades and yet at the same time
to say from the depths of my being Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief that is a flesh withering perspective and when we begin to entertain a proud refusal to maintain the posture of a penitent sinner at that point we begin to have a callous raised upon our consciences because each signal of pain that comes from the awareness of how much sin yet remains in us at our holiest moments is a call for renewed repentance each consciousness of deviation from God's holy law is a call to renewed repentance each indulgence of any sin that in any way is a reminder to us that in us that is in our flesh dwells no good thing is a fresh call to assume the posture of sinners which is the posture of perpetual penitence before God how did Jesus describe the true sons and daughters of the kingdom
and the beatitudes those first two beatitudes are as it were the foundation blocks we don't move away from them everything is built upon them and as he gives this composite picture of the inner character of the true son or daughter of the kingdom listen to his words blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are they that mourn present tense for they shall be comforted here are the two fundamental building blocks in the character of the true sons and daughters of the kingdom poverty of spirit what makes a man poor when he doesn't have enough to meet the basic necessities of life that's a poor man Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit who no matter what attainments they may realize even in grace they acknowledge with the apostle Paul I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing that at this moment having walked with God for fifty years left to myself I could sink to the deepest depths of any kind of sin and to know that not as a theological abstraction
but as an internal experience spiritual perspective that keeps me in the posture blessed are they who mourn when God has long since by his grace enabled them to put off sins that can be seen by the eyes of society and many Christians do come under such consistent and advanced influences of the grace of God that people in the most intimate relationships looking on them could say over years that they had never seen them lose their temper they had never seen them speak angry words never known them to be dishonest even to the dime or to a penny they have in many ways attained to a blamelessness of life that is exemplary before all and yet they are still those who mourn because they know whatever they may have attained by grace in the eyes of their fellow men and whatever they may have attained in the testimony of their own consciences of a blameless walk knowing that Jesus Christ is the standard to which they press
they are painfully conscious there is so much about them that is so unlike him they know that their hearts whatever heights of love to Christ and tenderness to Christ they have known that those hearts do not love him with a love of which he is infinitely worthy and there is that constant mourning because of remaining sin of unattained standards of righteousness and conformity to Christ and it is as they continue in the posture of poverty of spirit and mourning that they keep a sensitive conscience but when pride begins to work in them there is that signal coming from their remaining sin you have fresh work for repentance fresh work for mourning fresh work for humiliation and they begin to look to the external blamelessness of their lives and begin subtly to take the posture of the Pharisee and by comparing themselves among themselves they say father I thank thee I am not as my fellow believers that I have not brought scandal to your name by outward sin I do not reproach you by excesses I do not this and I do not that what's happened
they have ceased to deal with the message of conscience biblically and when conscience pricked them for the first risings of a thought of pride and called them to repentance they told conscience to be quiet while they looked at the fact that they had never carried themselves visibly in a proud way and most people knew them to be marked for the reputation of humility they were not dealing biblically with conscience conscience said humble yourself the stirrings of pride are within you humble yourself keep conscience tender by responding to it biblically but instead they told conscience to be quiet while they began to look at virtues that God had worked in them by his grace and what happened they began to get a callous where once there was a sensitive conscience now there are others their failure to react biblically does not have so much these vertical demands these vertical dimensions it has horizontal dimensions for remember those two dimensions are there in Paul's text or our text of Paul's words I have this constant exercise to have a conscience not only void of offense to God
Causes: Carnal Fear of Consequences (Horizontal Dimension)
but to man and some have left off biblically to deal with their consciences when they were sensitive in this way please turn this cassette over to continue the message
some have left off biblically to deal with their consciences when they were sensitive in this way they had a carnal fear of the consequences of making things right with others they had a carnal fear of making things right with others some sins are so clearly offenses not only to God but to our fellow men that any true confession must take in the horizontal as well as the vertical here's someone who's been irritable with his wife and he's spoken sharp words to her she's spoken sharp words to him a brother or sister has spoken angry words to his brother or sister one of you children you've stolen a nickel off the top of mummy's dresser that's been a sin not only against God but against your mummy or against your dad and no sooner does your conscience chide you for that sin but you know if it's to be dealt with biblically there must be confession to God and confession to the person against whom you've sinned and while conscience is tender you feel that two-fold pressure and then you go to God and say oh God, forgive me conscience is still speaking says only half your work is done go speak to your wife go speak to your husband go speak to your brother go speak to your sister make that issue right but then there creeps in this carnal fear
of the consequences of making things right with others it may be that in your case you know that it may bring you under the very strictures of certain governmental regulations you cheated on your income tax you've done it for years and conscience presses and presses until you've raised a callous so thick that you can cheat now on your income tax and hardly feel a twinge of conscience and the reason all this started was you were fearful of what would happen if you marched down to the tax office at Newark and said look I botched the figures deliberately and willfully and I want to make it right and I'm prepared to pay the consequences it was carnal fear of the consequences of making things right with others that kept you from dealing biblically with the functions of your once sensitive conscience until now your conscience has become a mass of callouses because you simply don't want to make right all those lies how about you children all the lies you've told mom and dad and your conscience has become frighteningly calloused even at a very young age
and there are few things children listen few things that'll raise thick callouses more quickly than lies lies lies have a peculiar callous making power and some of you dear children have a callous that is absolutely frightening in its thickness and in its insensitivity and why is that so? there was a time when the slightest little lie you told your mommy or your daddy you ran immediately to them and you made it right but then a time came when you did something and you say oh if I tell them that I'll probably get a whipping the likes of which I never got before I'll get a spanking that'll probably leave my bottom blue for a week and it was your fear of the punishment that you knew would come you didn't make that right in the first week or two remember kids how it bothered you every time you sat down to eat you found it hard to look mom and dad in the eye and then you got bolder and bolder until now you can look them straight in the eye as though you've been as honest as an angel and God knows you've been a liar like the devil and you've got a callous in your conscience maybe it's a husband cheated on his wife you've violated the sacred citadel of the marriage bond
and you've mourned and confessed and repented before God but your conscience told you you had to make that issue right with your wife it may not have been open and scandalous something that never needed to be made known to the church but how could you take your wife in your arms? having violated the sacredness of the marriage bond your conscience screamed the first time you were intimate with your wife after you had laid with a harlot or with another woman and now you've gotten so used to it you were so afraid if I tell her she might divorce me if I tell her she might go to the elders and the elders might and you thought of the consequences didn't you man? and your carnal fear kept you from dealing biblically with your sin and that's why you are where you are today callous conscience why? because you did not deal biblically with your conscience when it was sensitive and why didn't you? because of a carnal fear of the consequences of making things right with others that's the cause of it but then in some of you it's not so much a carnal fear of the consequences
Causes: Unmortified Pride Hindering Confession
of making things right with others it's an unmortified spirit of pride which hinders you from acknowledging your wrong to another you're not afraid of the consequences of confessing your sin to your brethren you're just too proud the hardest words for you to say are these I was wrong full stop not I was wrong but and everything that follows the but cancels the I was wrong there's a nervous snicker I think many of you know what I'm talking about I was wrong what keeps you from saying that? those of us who've had children how many times when our children were younger we saw the situation there was no question as to who was in the wrong we took one of them aside and said now say to your brother or your sister I'm sorry I was wrong I was wrong say to your sister say to your brother I'm sorry I was wrong they set their little mouth and their little jaw sometimes you've got to spank them once twice thrice
and you've just got to stay with it until their proud rebellious hearts at least externally are brought to say I was wrong and we laugh about it when we see it in children though it's a matter that ought to make us weep but when you sit in counseling sessions as I do with grown adults and fractured marriages and what's the fundamental problem? conscience is calloused from this very very root issue unmortified pride that hinders husband or wife or both from saying I was wrong because forgive me and then shut up not I was wrong but and you provoked me and you're wrong and this and that these are not laughing matters dear people if keeping a good conscience is an essential element in perseverance and you can't keep a good conscience until you learn how to recognize and deal with the malady of a calloused conscience then you and I must learn what it is to say trampling over our native pride
and disposition to self-justification I was wrong I have sinned because God says in language that cannot be mistaken James 4 and verse 6 God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble and as long as there is unmortified pride that keeps you from saying I have sinned I was wrong I was in error forgive me God will resist you we're commanded to confess our sins one to another James 5 if thy brother sin against thee rebuke him if he repent forgive him Luke 17 Ephesians 4 31 and 32 be ye kind tenderhearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you and our Lord taught us that is part of the framework of all true prayer will be the acknowledgement forgive us our debts as we forgive those who have sinned against us well you see all of these things are but manifestations of one fundamental common cause for a calloused conscience a failure to react biblically to the functions of a tender conscience the paralyzing weariness
The Cure: Honest Recognition of Your Condition
in the struggle to keep a good conscience unbelieving reluctance to keep coming to Christ proud refusal to take the place of a perpetual penitent carnal fear of the consequences of making things right unmortified pride that hinders our confessing our sins to one another that's the cause have you seen yourself in the midst of all this that's the cause have you seen yourself this morning let us come quickly in conclusion then to the cure for a calloused conscience and would to God we could go off to the local drug store and buy some medication in a bottle and apply it three times a day with the promise in two weeks the callous will dissolve and go away but it's not that simple the cure for a calloused conscience begins first of all and we had it in our text this morning in our regular reading an honest and accurate recognition of your condition an honest and accurate recognition of your condition you remember when the Lord spoke to the Ephesian church what he said to them turn there for a moment I could quote the verse and many of you would recognize it from memory but when the Lord Jesus indicts the Ephesian church for abandoning its first love
you'll notice what his first word directive to that church is I have somewhat against thee because thou didst leave thy first love Revelation 2 5 remember remember remember therefore whence thou art fallen think come to grips realistically with your true state I do commend you for your zeal to maintain purity of doctrine our Lord says I do commend you for all the manifestations of grace that have flourished in you in the past and in the present but I see that the queen of all graces is begun to wither and die your first love that love marked by simplicity and fervency of ardor that love is waned remember remember yourself reflect upon the time when it was otherwise with your soul and there is no hope for recovery from a calloused conscience if you will not remember if you will not come to an honest and accurate recognition of your present condition and that's painful that's painful because usually the person with a calloused conscience
has learned a thousand subtle ways to protect his callous because he knows beneath that callous there's tender skin there's tender skin and for some reason he no longer wants the tender skin that's the very thing that produced the callous the heel said protect me from that particular curvature of the running shoe protect me from that pressure of that part of the shoe and in response a callous was built up and your conscience cried out spare me that raw that pressure that pain from that issue and the callous is built up and built up and there will be no restoration without an honest and accurate recognition of your condition one of the saddest passages in the bible is found in Isaiah chapter 44 and we don't have time to look at it in detail but just for a moment here the nation is gone to the worshipping of dead idols a man goes out and gets a hunk of wood with part of it he carves an idol with part of it he warms himself at his own fire with part of it he cooks his meal and yet in spite of the absolute stupidity of what he's doing God says in essence can't you see how stupid this is you go out and get a piece of wood and part of it you cook your meal
part of it you warm yourself part of it you make a god it should be so obvious what you've made is a nothing how can you worship that and exchange me for a dead nothing but they didn't seem to feel the pressure of that kind of obvious logic and why didn't they look at verse 19 of Isaiah 44 none calls to mind none calls to mind neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say I've burned part of it in the fire yes I've baked bread upon the coals of it and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination shall I fall down to the stock of a tree he feeds on ashes a deceived heart has turned him aside and he cannot deliver his soul nor say is there not a lie in my right hand isn't that pathetic he has been so given up to playing these kinds of tragic devastating head games that he can't think straight about reality anymore and it's a tragic thing when a believer comes to that state where in a given area his conscience has become so calloused there is no longer any real contact with reality and the first step in any cure for a calloused conscience
is an honest and an accurate recognition of your condition think back my dear man or woman boy or girl think back when the slightest deviation from what you knew to be the will of God caused you instant and present pain when the word of God week after week would come and find you in some area of ethical behavior and you were a constant penitent sitting in this very building think back to the time when you knew the sense of shame when you wanted as it were this floor to open up and the floor beneath it and the ground beneath that when the sense of your sin discovered known only to you and God filled you with shame and you found it hard to even walk down the aisle and look at God's people you said to yourself if they only knew what I know about me they would look at me and you wanted to hide can you remember? can you remember? now you hold your head high you can come stinking and reeling from bad mouthing your husband or wife from filling your eyes with filth having your hands touch uncleanness having your spirit soaked with impurity and you can sit here very comfortably and greet all God's people with a big 32 tooth grin
The Cure: Wholehearted Dealings with God
as though nothing had ever happened and you haven't been visiting the cross you haven't been standing like a penitent publican you've not been going to church you haven't been going to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness my friend your calloused conscience is the reason you're where you are and there'll be no cure until there's an honest and accurate recognition of your condition secondly there must be wholehearted dealings with God to do something about your condition that's why Jesus said in Revelation 2 it's not enough to remember he said remember from whence you are fallen and repent there must be wholehearted dealings with God to have your condition changed and oh how many rich passages in the Old Testament I had hoped to bring to bear but time is gone Jeremiah 29 13 ye shall seek me and find me in the day that you search for me with all your heart Hosea 14 1 take with you words and return unto the Lord Joel chapter 2 verses 12 to 14 yet even now turn unto me with all your heart and with fasting and mourning and weeping James chapter 4 rend your heart and not your garment is the language of Joel and then James says that if we humble ourselves
unto the mighty hand of God cleanse your hands ye sinners purify your heart ye double-minded draw near to God and he will draw near to you what do all of those passages tell us that the cure for a calloused conscience is in wholehearted not half-hearted but wholehearted dealings with God that God would do something about this tragic condition read Psalm 51 for a model of a man who wants God to do something with his calloused conscience create in me a clean heart oh God renew a right spirit within me restore unto me the joy of thy salvation if you're to have a true cure you must not only honestly and accurately recognize your condition wholeheartedly deal with God about that condition but follow closely Jesus went on to say in Revelation 2 remember repent and do the first works you must take specific steps to remove the causes of your calloused the soul of the sluggard desires and has nothing so the writer to Proverbs says the writer of the Proverbs again he says the desire of the sluggard kills him you've got to take specific steps
The Cure: Specific Steps to Remove Causes
you didn't get that callous overnight and you won't lose it overnight either the first thing you need to do is go and ask God to soak those callouses in the blood of Jesus nothing will begin to soften callouses upon the conscience apart from the blood of Jesus come to him with your callous conscience and say oh Lord that conscience that is hard and brittle and can in no way be scraped off or cut off in that condition Lord soften it in the blood of your dear son bring near the cross of Christ view your sins afresh in the light of his own agony view them in the light of his own dereliction view them in the light of his own baptism of the wrath of God soak your callous conscience in the blood of the redeemer and having soaked it in the blood of the redeemer if necessary take out paper and pencil so that you're not paralyzed by the realization oh there's so much to deal with there's no way I can begin and you start writing down the things that need to be set right with God and with your fellow men be it wife, husband, daughter boss at work, employer employee relationships write them down and I'm not telling you to do something
I have not done periodically to have a judgment day before the judgment day and ask God to help me to locate every issue that is causing any callous upon the conscience and write it down and as it's dealt with whether it's a letter that needs to be written a person that needs to be seen restitution that needs to be made and then to check it off to check it off to check it off until you can get on your knees before God and say Lord while not claiming any delusive notions of perfection my conscience as it rests before you and I can look out into the face of any one of my fellow creatures and know not that I'm sinless but that my conscience is void of offense until you get specific you'll make no progress and you'll just find yourself on the treadmill of one in two until you'll get discouraged and say what's the use I made all that effort I sought to remember I sought to have dealings with God and nothing happened what's the use and you'll go back to a conscience more callous than it ever was before Jesus said remember repent and do the first works some of you children you're going to make no spiritual progress until you sit down with mom and dad and clear those matters that you know have got to be cleared
those lies you told the money you took you've got to clear it time won't clear those issues you've got to deal with them you've got to deal with them some of you are going to make no progress until you write the IRS and tell them that you cheated you rationalize them so you had there a bunch of crooks and they imposed this on me and they yeah they may be a bunch of crooks but they'll answer to God for their crookery and you'll answer to God for yours is their crookery reason for you to have a callous conscience you're to render tribute to whom tribute is due that wasn't exactly a righteous government sitting there in Rome at the time it wasn't a bunch of Christians running the show you could have to deal with it you say well there must be some way around it under it over it no no friend until you get honest with God and specific in your dealings with those issues you'll go on crippled and have a callous conscience for some of you like Zacchaeus it may be a painful process that takes months or years remember what Zacchaeus said behold Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor if I've taken anything wrongfully I restored fourfold I got a sneaking suspicion he was fulfilling that promise for months
he was a wealthy tax collector a wealthy one and as he went back over his records he probably had dozens and dozens of people that he had to go to he had to humble himself knock on the door oh hello Mr. Zacchaeus how you doing not so good why may I come in and talk to you sure come in then he begins to tell his tale house after house client after client my friend it's far better to be in pursuit of getting a good conscience and never even come to the realization but have your face set in the direction of it and die moving there than to die in the state some of you are in I want to close with a choice word that I found in one of my old Puritan fathers who sits me on his knee and talks to me old Sibbes let me close with what Sibbes says that I hope it will cause some of you to be jealous to get a good conscience at any cost if we desire thereto or to have joy and comfort at all times let us labor to have a good conscience that may witness well and therefore let us every day keep an audit with indoors
Conclusion: Daily Audit and Preparation for Death
every day cast up our accounts and every day draw the blood of Christ over our accounts every day beg forgiveness for us and the spirit of Christ to lead us so that we may keep account every day so that we may make our reckonings even every day now listen carefully that we may have the less to do in time of sickness in the time of temptation and in the time of death when we have discharged our consciences before by keeping a session with them at home in our own hearts when do people's consciences become intensely active in times of sickness temptation and death he says do your work daily and then you'll have no abnormal work to do in temptation sickness and death wouldn't it be a wonderful thing so to live that if your annual visit to the doctor became the occasion of the news look you've got three months to live to the know that you had no peculiar business to do but more general preparation to meet the Lord wouldn't it be a terrible thing to have conscience scream out
what about all the callouses that were never dissolved in the blood of Christ that were never truly taken away by honest dealings with God and thorough dealings with your fellow men and to scurry about while your physical and mental and emotional powers are waning and try to do in a matter of weeks that which should have been the work of a lifetime from such a tragedy may God deliver us that we may so live each day in the court of God with our consciences that we will have no unusual work to do when it comes time to die a calloused conscience we've looked at its characteristics we've looked at its cause we've considered its cure may God help us to get and to keep a good conscience at any cost let us pray our Father we bow in your presence conscious that all things are naked and opened before your eyes
we look on the outward appearance of each other but you see our hearts and we pray that wherever you see a calloused conscience there you will work effectively graciously powerfully irresistibly oh God so work that any callous that is upon the conscience of any one of your children may this day begin to be removed radically and powerfully by your grace we pray for the unconverted amongst us who've never known what it is to have a good conscience for a moment because they've never owned their sinnerhood and fled to Christ for pardon as they anticipate the certainty of their own death their own judgment the world to come give them no rest nor peace until in Jesus Christ they find peace of conscience through his own precious blood seal your word to our hearts and give us grace to be obedient to its precepts we ask in Jesus name Amen
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Passages Expounded
Acts 24:16
This verse, though briefly quoted, serves as a foundational principle for the entire series on conscience, highlighting Paul's commitment to maintaining a clear conscience before God and man.
Revelation 2:4-5
The Lord's message to the Ephesian church provides the three-fold framework for the cure of a calloused conscience: remember, repent, and do the first works.
Texts Expounded
auto_stories
The Lord's indictment of the Ephesian church for abandoning its first love is expounded as the starting point for curing a calloused conscience: remembering, repenting, and doing the first works.